Why Are There Different Languages?—Response to Vyvyan Evans (Part 4, C...

Dec 3, 2015 by

Why Are There Different Languages?—Response to Vyvyan Evans (Part 4, Conclusion)

[Many thanks to Martin W. Lewis and Johanna Nichols for insightful discussions of some of the issues considered in this post.]   As discussed in the previous post, Vyvyan Evans advocates an alternative to the so-called saltationist...

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Universal Grammar, Neanderthals, and the Evolution of Language—Respons...

Dec 1, 2015 by

Universal Grammar, Neanderthals, and the Evolution of Language—Response to Vyvyan Evans (Part 3)

[Many thanks to Martin W. Lewis and Matthew Jobin for insightful discussions of some of the issues considered in this post.]   The next set of objections to the Universal Grammar (UG) theory raised by Vyvyan Evans concerns its...

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Does Universal Grammar Theory Imply that Language Are All the Same?—Re...

Nov 29, 2015 by

Does Universal Grammar Theory Imply that Language Are All the Same?—Response to Vyvyan Evans (Part 2)

In the previous post, I began laying out a response to Vyvyan Evans’ article in Aeon and more generally in his book, The Language Myth: Why Language Is Not an Instinct. That earlier post focuses on whether language is in instinct. In...

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Is Language an Instinct?—Response to Vyvyan Evans (part 1)

Nov 27, 2015 by

Is Language an Instinct?—Response to Vyvyan Evans (part 1)

About a year ago, Aeon published an article by Vyvyan Evans, titled “Real talk”, which was recently brought to my attention by Polish linguist Piotr Gąsiorowski. Evans’s article in Aeon summarizes some of the key ideas in his book,...

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